Tesla's Gotcha Blog Catches New York Times Reporter Driving In Circles

Ford Motor’s Chief Executive Alan Mulally is fond of saying, “the data will set you free” when talking about business.

But another automotive CEO, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, has quite a different objective in mind.

He’s using data gleaned from one of his company’s high-tech, electric sedans to try to snare a New York Times reporter in a lie.

Musk and Times reporter John Broder have been engaged in a war of words since last Friday, when Broder published a damaging review of Tesla’s new Model S after an East Coast test-drive. Broder claimed he followed Tesla’s instructions, charging the vehicle at two newly installed super-charging facilities in Delaware and Connecticut, but still ran out of juice in the frigid weather, calling for a flatbed truck after the Tesla died.

Musk fought back on Twitter, calling the test a “fraud” and promised to show proof in an upcoming blog post.

At 2 a.m. this morning, he delivered a blow-by-blow critique of Broder’s test drive, complete with annotated charts that he said proved that Broder’s account was false. “When the facts didn’t suit his opinion, he simply changed the facts,” Musk wrote.

How does he know? “After a negative experience several years ago with ‘Top Gear,’ a popular automotive show, where they pretended that our car ran out of energy and had to be pushed back to the garage, we always carefully data log media drives,” Musk wrote.

So whether Broder knew it or not, the black box in the car he was testing had recorded every detail about his driving experience, and seemed to leave the journalist with some explaining to do.

For instance:

As the State of Charge log shows, the Model S battery never ran out of energy at any time, including when Broder called the flatbed truck.

Cruise control was never set to 54 mph as claimed in the article, nor did he limp along at 45 mph. Broder in fact drove at speeds from 65 mph to 81 mph for a majority of the trip and at an average cabin temperature setting of 72 F.

At the point in time that he claims to have turned the temperature down, he in fact turned the temperature up to 74 F.

Musk also wrote that once Broder reached the super-charging station in Connecticut with a display that said “0 miles remaining,” he drove in circles for over half a mile in a parking lot rather than plug it in. “When the Model S valiantly refused to die, he eventually plugged it in.”

Frankly, as an automotive reporter, I would have done the same thing. It’s important to know what happens when the battery eventually dies. If I were thinking about buying an electric car, I’d rather read about what to expect in a car review than to go through that anxiety myself on some deserted highway. It’s called reporting. UPDATE: In an email, Broder told New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer: "I was circling the parking lot in the service plaza looking for the unmarked and unlighted Supercharger port in the dark. I was not trying to drain the battery."

But Musk thinks the cards were stacked against Tesla from the beginning, based on earlier stories by Broder expressing skepticism about EVs.

“While the vast majority of journalists are honest, some believe the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a salacious story,” he wrote. “In Mr. Broder’s case, he simply did not accurately capture what happened and worked very hard to force our car to stop running.”

A Times spokeswoman today reiterated that its story was “fair and accurate,” adding, “We are in the process of reviewing the specific claims in Tesla's blog post and will respond to those when that review is complete.

But in a post Tuesday responding to Musk’s tweets and other accusations he made in a CNBC interview, Broder defended his account as accurate.

He also said this, which is important:

“Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a “normal use,” no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop.”

This is exactly the point I made in a Forbes post on Monday. Electric cars are not going to replace internal combustion cars any time soon. Despite the marvelous things the Tesla can do (which apparently includes spying on its operators) it is not a no-compromise car. Stopping for an hour to recharge the car’s battery is a compromise, let’s face it.

That doesn’t mean EVs don’t have a place. For people who don’t need to drive more than a hundred or so miles on a daily basis, and who have a place to plug in their car overnight, it may well be an excellent choice.

I am not an EV-hater. I care about sustainability. I worry about the environment. I don’t want our country to be dependent on foreign oil.

But until the price of electric vehicles falls dramatically and there is a national network of charging stations as prevalent and easy to access as today’s gas stations, electric cars will be nothing more than niche vehicles.